


Or Press 1 For More Options

by quicksilverdeancas (quicksilvermalec)



Series: Dean and Cas Bingo [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Drabble, Other, Season/Series 13, Temporary Character Death, Voicemail, canon character death, inspired by a different work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 20:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21214739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverdeancas
Summary: "At the tone, please record your message. When you've finished recording you may hang up, or press 1 for more options."orIn which Dean is fighting a losing battle against whiskey, an almost-forgotten phone number, and the demons in his own head.





	Or Press 1 For More Options

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TalksToSelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalksToSelf/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916478) by [TalksToSelf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalksToSelf/pseuds/TalksToSelf). 

> Thanks to the lovely TalksToSelf for giving me permission to write a Dean POV of their fic (which is right there ^). Love ya!
> 
> This was written for the Dean and Cas bingo. It covers the square, "Fluff".
> 
> Enjoy!

He’s been dead for… what is it, a week now? Dean can’t even keep track anymore. His days all blur together, a haze of pain and alcohol and salt rounds. He’s barely conscious, just going through the motions, and that’s ridiculous, because he isn’t like this when people die, this isn’t a thing that Dean does.

But this is his life now. Breakfast, alcohol, research, driving, weapons discharge, driving, alcohol, research, weapons discharge, alcohol, driving, sleep. Sam, Jack. No Cas.

The first time he does it, he’s (surprisingly) sober, but he’s also depressed and fucking exhausted from the day’s hunt. He’s almost out of bandwidth, and he’s kinda miserable, and he probably isn’t thinking straight. After the fact, he couldn’t give you one reason why he reached for his phone and tapped the top name on his speed-dial, but he knows he didn’t hesitate.

“_This is Castiel. I guess you’re supposed to talk to me, or something. I still don’t know how this works. Just listen to the robot lady. _– At the tone, please record your message. When you’ve finished recording you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. BEEP.”

Dean pauses for just a minute, then sighs and tries to come up with something to say. “I… dammit, Cas, I miss you.” He barely gets through the word ‘you’ before he’s jamming the END CALL button, because “fuck!” he yells, at himself, at his own idiocy. He’s never going to get through, because Cas is fucking dead, and all he’s doing now is hurting himself.

He’s never going to call that number again.

…Except that he does, the next day, because he wants to hear Cas’ voice on his voicemail recording again.

“_This is Castiel. I guess you’re supposed to talk to me, or something. I still don’t know how this works. Just listen to the robot lady. _– At the tone, please record your message. When you’ve finished recording you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. BEEP.”

“I can’t do this without you,” he chokes out, then groans, drops his phone, and slams the heel of his hand down on the desk. He stays there motionless for a minute, then picks the phone back up and ends the call.

And somehow it becomes a coping mechanism. If he can still hear him talk, it’s almost like he’s not dead, or at least, not all the way dead. Like maybe Dean should have some hope he might come back. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before – Dean Winchester and those around him have an unfortunate and extremely intriguing habit of not staying dead for more than a year most of the time. So Dean starts calling him just to listen to his greeting, and sometimes (although he’d admit it the day after never at twenty-five-o’-clock) to cry over the loss of his best friend.

“_This is Castiel. I guess you’re supposed to talk to me, or something. I still don’t know how this works. Just listen to the robot lady. _– At the tone, please record your message. When you’ve finished recording you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. BEEP.”

Sometimes he still leaves messages, but a lot of the time all he does is listen to himself breathe as he processes _yet again_ that Castiel is dead _yet again_.

“At the tone, please record your message.”

“Why am I even still calling this number?” he wonders aloud in one of them. “I just… There’s some stupid fucked-up part of my brain that keeps expecting that you’re gonna answer.”

“_Just listen to the robot lady._”

“Sam says I have to be nicer to Jack. He’s the son of freakin’ Satan. _Literally _Satan. And I just… I hate that he’s just like you.” After he ends the call, he mutters, “I hate that he reminds me so much of you.”

Eventually, he starts getting really drunk every night. Thankfully, he can manage to get Sam to drive without ever having to look into his eyes, because Dean doesn’t think he could handle it, so he’ll toss Sam the keys to Baby some nights and murmur “don’t lose that shit” and disappear into his bedroom to talk to a dead guy.

Sometimes when he’s drunk – okay, a lot of the time when he’s drunk – he gets so irrationally pissed the fuck off that he can barely think, can barely breathe, and when he hears “_This is Castiel_” he immediately starts chewing him out, doesn’t even wait until he gets the tone. The only things that go all the way through those days are his last couple of sentences, things like “you son of a fucking bitch, Cas. Where the hell do you get off dying?” and “Why didja go and get yourself killed? Was it worth it? Angels don’t go to heaven. Or hell. Did you just stop fucking existing…”

“_I still don’t know how this works._”

“If I thought for a _second _I’d wind up wherever the hell it is you wound up I’d pull the trigger right now. I’ve got nothing left here. Sam and I just… we don’t work anymore. I know Jack isn’t to blame, of course I know that, I just… I can’t even look at him.”

“BEEP.”

“…”

“At the tone-”

“…” _I can’t live like this._

And then the day before Cas comes back, Dean feels like maybe he just doesn’t know how to live this life anymore, and he leaves one last voicemail, fully intending to be dead come sunrise.

“_Talk to me, or something_.”

“I never told you. But you knew, right? God, I hope you knew. I shoulda told you… and I’m a fucking idiot for not sayin’ it when I had the chance. I’m… fuck, eight, nine? beers in now, so fuck it. I’ll say it. I’ll scream it loud enough for Heaven and Hell to hear if you want me to. I’m in love with you! …And you fuckin’ left me. You asshole.”

And the next day, there he is, like he was sent back down from Heaven to save Dean – again.

He doesn’t mention the voicemails for months, until one day when Dean walks past his open bedroom door and hears his own voice shouting, “I’m in love with you!” He sticks his head into the room and Cas glances up at him, turns a little red.

Dean doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I was drunk, and- and angry, and I-”

“Dean,” Cas’ voice breaks through his stuttered defense. “I love you too.”

Dean doesn't waste any time kissing him.

**Author's Note:**

> Idk why but that was really fun to write!
> 
> Love,  
-Fake Dean | Sil


End file.
